After the Bath: Seated Woman Drying Herself

This pastel was purchased directly from Edgar Degas by William Rockhill Nelson, the founder of the Museum, in 1896. A woman dries the back of her neck with a white towel while seated on a daybed upholstered in scarlet fabric. Degas subtly evokes the range of her skin tones while his use of pastel highlights the increasing importance of color in his late work. Her right thigh seems too long but Degas was not always preoccupied with anatomical exactitude. This image is related to the suite of bather nudes that Degas showed at the final Impressionist exhibition in 1886. He affirmed his aim to show "a human creature preoccupied with herself—a cat who licks herself…It is as if you had looked through a key-hole."